Re-introduction!

[grsale]

I've been here before, but after two laptop replacements, my login and other membership data evaporated!  So, I've signed up again, and will look to this forum to answer the myriad questions I have!
I have a Yamaha PSR-SX900 (& a Korg Liverpool) at home, and an S970 at a buddy's house where a group of friends (all old guys!!) jam at every possible opportunity.  When we're well-staffed, as it were, I play bass, drums and often blues and chromatic harmonica, sometimes acoustic guitar and sometimes keyboards.
However, in this era of personal contact avoidance, I play full accompaniments on the PSRS970 with one other guy who sings and plays guitar.  And therein lies my problem!  I take FAR too much time searching for an appropriate style to select for the song we agree on.  E.g.: Sam (not his real name) says, "BeeGees, Words, go", and I start fumbling through the lists of Ballads, Country, Pop, for a 4/4 at about 60bpm.  Five minutes later I've found something which works, and we go.  Next, he wants "Bad Case Of Loving You", and away we go again.  Yes, I know we should have made a playlist in advance, but we don't.  Ever.  He uses Ultimate Guitar for his lyrics and chords, and I do as well (I've even made a correction submission to UG!).  I need a better way to quickly find appropriate styles and tempos to accommodate random selections of jam songs!  I wish the UG listings included such suggestions! But they don't.
What do you recommend?

[Roger Brenizer]

Hi Grsale,

Welcome back to the forum and thank you for becoming a member again.  I'm sure you'll learn a lot about your Yamaha keyboards here on the forum and will experience many pleasurable hours playing them.

I would advise you to post your questions in an appropriate board, as you will most likely have more responses than having your questions answered here.

You'll want to be sure to visit the Home page and check out some of the tutorials you will find links to there.  The following link will take you to the Home page of the website:

http://psrtutorial.com/

Should you later decide to become a supporting member, which will include lifetime membership, other forum boards will become available to you, as well as a wealth of additional musical knowledge; however, there is absolutely no obligation to do so.  You may also use the following link to discover the full benefit of becoming a Supporting Member of the PSR Tutorial.

http://www.psrtutorial.com/forum/index.php/topic,15536.0.html

You'll also gain access to an Excel Song Index database, made available to supporting members by our good friend Peter (XeeniX), which presently contains 85,000 plus song titles in 2,528 indexed books.  This index is updated often.

In lieu of making a donation only, you may also order any of the websites resources, which can be found at the following link:

http://psrtutorial.com/cdrom/productsum.html

Joe Waters updated "Supporting the PSR Tutorial", on August 27, 2017, which can be found here:

https://psrtutorial.com/cdrom/index.html

We're so glad you've decided to become a member and very happy you've decided to become a part of this great forum family.  If you have any questions, then please just ask.  Many of our members are always very willing to help you.

[VilleGuy]

I believe that with an iPad and a program like Songbook+ you can keep a songlist on your iPad. When your buddy calls out "Bee Gee, Words," you can tap that song on your iPad songlist, it will send a command to your keyboard and configure the keyboard to instantly call up the settings & style that you have designated for "Words."

It takes a bit of setting up and I have not gone down that road yet, so I can't be of more help. But others on this list use Songbook+ in this way, so they can probably offer advice.

One note: this type of setup won't work on your S970, but it should work on your SX9000. It will probably work with non-Apple tablets, but again, others on this list can advise you on that.

[DrakeM]

Very simple, YOU call out what song to play next and let him try and find the words and chords to the song. 

Remember when he calls out the song, you are trying to find the correct Drummer, Bass player, Piano player, Horn player parts. Man come on, it takes time to figure out 6 other musicians parts.

Regards
Drake

[KeyboardEd]

XeeniX has an Excel spreadsheet that does a good job of matching styles to songs. I think it's in the supporter section.

Looks like he put a lot of time and effort into it. I use the spreadsheet quite often. If nothing else it gets me thinking of the 'right' style type/genre.

Is there an exact 'right' style for any song?!!

[mikf]

I know this thread is a bit old, but in case the question is still out there .....
A very simple solution is what some used to call 'gig discs'. You make a folder on your user drive or thumb drive called something like "my songs".  Then find a style for the song, and a tempo. Save the style at the correct tempo in this folder under the song name. Do this in your own time for every song you think you might play. It doesn't take that long. Now you have a folder which contains all the songs listed alphabetically, with the perfect style for each. If the folder is big, break it up sections .. something like "my songs A - F etc. It's easy to refine this with the key as well if you like, so it becomes "Words G".
Of course you can also do something similar with either registrations or playlists.
Mike

[Toril S]

This is excactly what I do! Works very well.